1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the electronic cancellation of wind noise and more particularly to a method of manufacturing acoustical devices that incorporate the electronic cancellation of wind noise.
2. Description of Related Art
The present invention departs generally from the need of canceling wind disturbances from desired acoustical source reception as of speech or music etc. Wind noise in hearing devices is a severe problem. Wind noise may reach magnitudes of 100 dB SPL (Sound Pressure Level) and even more. Users of hearing devices therefore often switch their device off in windy conditions, because acoustical perception with the hearing device in windy surrounding may become worse than without the hearing device.
Approaches are known to counteract wind noise by mechanical constructional measures, but cannot eliminate wind noise completely, often even not to a completely satisfying degree. It is well-known that wind noise is a low-frequency phenomenon. Depending upon wind speed, direction of the wind with respect to the device, hair length of the individual, mechanical obstructions like hats and other factors, magnitude and spectral content of wind noise vary significantly. With respect to noise, effects and causes we refer to H. Dillon et al., “The sources of wind noise in hearing aids”, IHCON 2000, as well as to I. Roe et al., “Wind noise in hearing aids: Causes and effects”, submitted to JASA.
Wind signals at sensing ports or acoustical/electrical input converters of hearing devices mounted with a predetermined spacing are far less correlated than are normal acoustical signals to be perceived, as especially speech, music etc.
One reason is that such normal acoustical signals arrive as more or less planar waves, causing at distant acoustical to electrical input converters time delays which are far predominantly caused by the direction of arrival with which such signals impinge upon the converter. As known to the skilled artisan, this time delay is used in beamformer art, whereby a delayed output signal from one converter is subtracted from the output signal of the other converter. There results at the common output of subtraction a signal which has an amplification characteristic with respect to impinging acoustical signals which is dependent on the direction of arrival DOA of such signals with respect to the converters and is commonly known as beamformer characteristics.
The subtraction of well correlated signals as generated by the above mentioned normal signals to be perceived as of speech or music signals normally leads to the known roll-off behavior of such beamformers. The roll-off behavior or characteristic establishes a frequency dependent attenuation of the beam characteristics. It has a pronounced high-pass character, which considerably attenuates low frequencies which are critical especially for speech perception.
Wind noise signals are not subject to the roll-off behavior of a beamformer because of their lower correlation even at very low frequencies and considered at least two spaced apart input converters. Whereas normal signals as speech is attenuated by the roll-off towards low frequencies, wind noise is not. Even worse, wind noise has a further adverse effect on signal transfer of normal signals affecting speech recognition. It masks speech-caused signals due to the “upwards-spread-off masking”. Upward-spread-off masking is a phenomenon according to which a signal at a predetermined spectral frequency masks signals at higher frequency increasingly with increasing amplitude.
From the US 2002-0 037 088 A1 as well as from the DE 10 045 197 it is known to tackle the problem of wind noise by detecting such noise at two spaced-apart input converters and use in windy situations only the output signal of one of the omnidirectional converters, thereby in fact switching beamforming off. Further, a static high-pass filter is switched on to further attenuate wind noise.
Nevertheless, many hearing devices do not feature two or more acoustical input converters, so that the detection and elimination of wind noise based on two or more converters is not always possible. Further, as was mentioned above, the spectral shape of wind noise varies significantly in time. Thereby, the spectrum range, where wind noise has an energy i.e. below 104 Hz is exactly that range where a hearing device should be effective, because individuals have often impaired hearing abilities in this range. Attenuating wind noise with a static high-pass filter will either filter too little of the wind noise to maintain normal signal perception, or to such an amount that wind noise is well cancelled, but also normal acoustical signals to be perceived. Switching beamforming off as proposed in the above mentioned documents significantly reduces the overall advantages of a hearing device with beamforming abilities also at higher frequencies.
It is an object of the present invention generically to provide methods and devices which deal with the above mentioned drawbacks. Although it departs from the specific wind noise problems, some of the solutions according to the present invention may also be applied for improving signal-to-noise ratio more generically with respect to normal acoustical signals as of speech or music signals or for improving beamformer control and/or wind detection.